Pollution, chemicals in the water and its effect on embryonic development

ESPINOSA MARÍA B.

Congreso; Pew Program in the Biomedical Sciences - Meeting; 2014

Water pollution is a matter of concern around the world for its impact, environmental and on human health. Multicellular organisms require the apoptosis and mitosis in balance. If balance between proliferation and cell death is disturbed, the embryo may develop abnormally and the adult organism can develop cancer. We propose that teratogenesis is a result of the imbalance between apoptosis and mitosis during embryonic development because the apoptosis is inadequately triggered by an extrinsic signal. Research in my laboratory is focused on the study of the apoptotic pathway during embryonic development under the effect of environmental pollutants present in water, especially those related to nitrogen. Publications point the presence of many pollutants in water in rural and urban areas. Reports released by INTA indicate that pollutants linked to nitrogen (NO3-/NO2-) and phosphorus are those that most affect us locally.Hannas BR, Das PC, Li H, LeBlanc GA. (2010) Intracellular conversion of environmental nitrate and nitrite to nitric oxide with resulting developmental toxicity to the crustacean Daphnia magna. PLoS One. 5(8): e12453.Simmons AE, Karimi I, Talwar M and Thomas W. Simmons TW (2012) Effects of Nitrite on Development of Embryos and Early Larval Stages of the Zebrafish (Danio rerio) ZEBRAFISH 9, (4): 200-206.IDEAS: The main issue: Nitrogen may be causing teratogenesis by interference with the apoptotic pathway; it is supported by the fact that the signaling molecule nitric oxide (NO) is an apoptotic inducer and nitrogen is the substrate and limitant factor for the NOSs activity. Important to us, too, was the use of the zebrafish because it is an appropriate model for studies on genotoxicity. Detection of apoptosis, on embryos of zebrafish exposed to nitrates and nitrites during early stages of development, could be the evidence of the main issue.